


Vlad Shouldn't Have Had That Spicy Burrito

by ednae



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, badger cereal, fire core au, i'll stop writing things based on promsien's comics when she stops making such amazing comics, let me live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7140347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ednae/pseuds/ednae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vlad is so, so, so, so hot.</p>
<p>He also feels like he's on fire, but that's beside the point.</p>
<p>(Vlad discovering his fire powers for the first time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vlad Shouldn't Have Had That Spicy Burrito

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/204611) by Promsien. 



> I just hope promsien doesn't find this and hate me for destroying all her great work.

_Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm…_

Vlad repeated the words in his mind like a mantra.  He would maintain control if it were the last thing he did.  He could still feel the heat rising inside of him, but if he could just squash it down, _stay calm_ , then everything would be okay.

It had started this morning.  He'd woken up drenched in sweat.  It wasn't unusual for him to experience heat flashes in the night, and so he had ignored it and turned down his air conditioner briefly, waiting out the strange warmth inside him.

When he never cooled down, he began to worry.  He had thought of calling the only other person who might be able to help him, but his pride had gotten the better of him.  And what would Daniel know of this strange heat anyway?  He was twenty years inexperienced; he could hardly lift a finger against Vlad.

He drank water by the gallon, but his throat would never quench itself of the ravaging thirst.  He felt like a desert, the heat radiating off of him in waves of warmth which he knew was far from natural.

He had tried pacing to relieve his stress, but the action only caused him to sweat even more than he was already, and now he was seated at his desk with two fans blowing frigid air onto his skin.  And he was _still_ burning up.

He hung his head in his hands with a groan.  His seventh bottle of water had just been drained, and he craved more.  He knew that simply drinking water was not going to cool him down, was not going to get rid of his thirst, but he didn't know what else to do.

His eyes flickered to the phone on his desk.  He knew Daniel's number…but he couldn't do it.  Even if he wanted to, he doubted his pride would even be able to accept help from someone he had spent years condescending and ridiculing for his attempted heroism.  No, he would handle this alone.  Reasonably, it was unlikely that Daniel had surpassed him, and to think that he would be of any help was a preposterous notion.

He had spent over twenty years dealing with his developing powers alone, and he would be able to deal with this, too.  Whatever _this_ was.

The more anxious he became, the hotter he got.  He felt like he was on fire, burning up from the inside.  Vlad glanced down at the floor, noticing out of the corner of his eye a light shimmer dancing along his arms, tinting his skin in a glow of oranges and reds.

He repeated his mantra in his head until suddenly he couldn't think straight anymore.  The heat welling up inside him blocked all of his thoughts, and his entire mind had become a raging wildfire.

On instinct alone, he felt his arms move toward his desk.  His fingers felt the cool plastic of his phone, but the heat of his skin quickly removed whatever cold there was as he pressed a button.  Distantly, through the roaring flames in his head, he could hear the dial tone, and then a voice.  He wasn't sure who he had contacted—he had a suspicion, but no confirmation—and though Vlad heard a vaguely masculine voice through the haze in his mind, he couldn't tell exactly who it belonged to.

"H-help," he rasped into the speaker, his mouth so incredibly dry that it took him all his effort to get the word to form on his fumbling tongue.  The voice on the line sounded frantic when it responded to him, but Vlad couldn't say anything more.  He had never been so thirsty in his life, and his tongue swelled in his mouth, feeling more like cotton balls than organ tissue.

The voice yelled at him for only a few seconds more, and then the line went dead.  Vlad squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to _calm down_ so he could think more clearly, maybe muster up the strength to get more water.

He was never able to stand, but he managed to shut off his brain, keep calm despite the wildfire raging throughout his body.  When he heard the door to his office click open, the delusion of calm washed away from him, and he pulled at whatever reserves of power he had left to stay together, to not _melt_.  Because that is certainly what he felt like was happening to him.

"Vlad?"  It was the same voice from the phone, only this time it was here, in his mansion, and not over the muffled static of his phone's connection.  With the fire crackling in his head, Vlad could just barely hear footsteps clacking along his bamboo flooring.

He took a shaky breath into his tight lungs and squinted his eyes open into the cool, blue eyes of Daniel Fenton—those eyes which swam like an ocean around his pupils, as if taunting him taunting him with the promise of fresh water.

"You all right, Vlad?" Daniel said, reaching out to grab his shoulder.  Vlad jerked away when the boy recoiled, hissing as he grabbed at his burned hand with his other.  "Wh-what's going on?"

Vlad shook his head, unable to form anymore words, but he watched as a deep frown curved along Daniel's face.  His furrowed brows drew Vlad's attention to the fear in Daniel's eyes, but as realization dawned over the younger half-ghost, that fear turned into a twinkle of mischief.

Vlad never liked Daniel's games.  That, of course, did not mean he wasn't petty enough to not take part in them—and _win_ , naturally—but it didn't make him enjoy the childish antics consistently brought upon him by the boy.  That being said, he wasn't suffering enough to not acknowledge the look in Daniel's eyes with a snarl.

When he opened his mouth, however, a stream of flame came out with his breath, right into Daniel's face.  Suddenly, Vlad could feel the air blowing from the fans cool down his skin, and he wasn't a scorching desert any longer.  The heat was still present, overbearingly so, but it was worlds better, as if that strange release of fire had been begging to be let out.

Daniel's cough brought Vlad's attention back to his office, and he frowned at the red flush on the boy's cheeks.  Breathing in deeply for the first time in what had probably been hours, he smelled the burning flesh and wrinkled his nose at the stench.

Daniel wiped at his face, wincing as his fingers brushed against the burns, but he looked otherwise unaffected, if not amused, by Vlad's fire-spitting trick.

"It's called a core," the half-ghost explained, his words coming out a bit jumbled as he tried to move his mouth as little as possible.  "Looks like you just discovered yours."

Vlad wouldn't admit to being confused, by anything, ever.  He _would_ , however, be just humble enough to admit to not being totally omniscient, and by that confession, he found himself asking, "What in the world is a core?"  It came out in a hoarse voice, which only reminded him just how thirsty he still was.

Daniel responded with a chuckle and a gesture of his hand, which resulted in a chill running down Vlad's spine as spirals of moisture condensed into a mystifying ice sculpture in Daniel's palm.  Upon closer inspection, the statue was actually a detailed figure of Vlad, sporting a goofy face and compromising pose.  While Daniel snickered, Vlad scowled, but he refused to acknowledge the horribly demeaning sculpture.

"It's some kind of extension of our powers," Daniel said, actually giving some kind of explanation this time.  "Mine is an ice core, and I guess yours is fire?  Crazy.  And painful."  Daniel gingerly poked at his face again, groaning woefully.

"Yes, all right, now how do you stop this core thing from consuming you?"  Vlad fanned his face and adjusted his collar, feeling the buildup of heat grow stronger with each passing second.  It was getting harder to speak again, his tongue dissolving again into thick, dry cotton balls.

"You just have to, you know, let it out."  Daniel shrugged, as if the answer were obvious.

Vlad narrowed his eyes, but he complied with the vague instructions of the boy.  He closed his eyes and centered himself on his chair, imagining the heat inside him releasing itself into the air around him and dissolving.  He felt the heat simmering along his skin, flames licking at his arms and legs until the pressure of the fire was too much to bear.  And then he let it all out.

When he opened his eyes, Vlad had to suppress a groan.  The entire wall that faced the outside of his mansion had been blown off, and what remained of his office had been scorched and blackened by the explosion of his core.  His computer had been destroyed; precious documents and information, lost forever because he had forgotten to back it all up.  The area rug, an expensive cashmere, was still on fire.  Glass from his windows lay strewn about, threatening injury if anyone who couldn't fly dared to move around in the ruins.

Daniel, having gone intangible to protect himself, reappeared solidly in front of him, touching down to the burnt wood flooring.  He looked around at the wreckage, then back at Vlad, then back at the wreckage.  He put a hand to his temple and massaged it, eyes still darting around at the ruined office.

"Well, we'll work on it," Daniel said with a frown, and Vlad could only roll his eyes at the idiocy of the boy.


End file.
